Chrome-52 for Android with data-efficient Video Playback.

11 January, 2017

Google in recent times released the latest PC version of its Chrome Browser. The latest version was for the Windows, Mac, and Linux users. Now two weeks after the liberation of the PC version, Google released a stable build version of Chrome for Android users as well. The version is Chrome 52.

The biggest highlight in the list of improvements would be the playback speed and efficiency. The new version will load the videos faster with lesser data and power consumption.

Chrome 52 for Android promises a smoother faster and less power consuming video sharing and loading experience. Now the videos will play faster without stopping. Also, the video streaming and playing will consume less battery now using Chrome 52.

Now, the videos on Facebook, YouTube, and Netflix will load faster with lesser buffering. The product manager at Google John Pallett, has posted a video comparison on YouTube. The video demonstrates the video speed difference of Chrome 52 from earlier versions. The video experiment claims the new version to be five times faster.

The Chrome for Android also has a data saver mode. The feature lets you download and play a lighter version of the video with less data consumption. As estimated, it saves about 50 percent of your data. The feature only works for the HTML5-based sites. Hence the flash sites will not get affected by this feature of Chrome 52. Videos on such sites can still stop and buffer late.

Google is rolling out Chrome 52 to the users via an OTA. The version will soon reach all the Android users. Those not received the notification can Check for updates in the About section of the Settings to get the latest version.

Google says more than a billion hours of web video play happens to be on Chrome every week. The amount of time is significant. With no particular category reveals, the firm said that most of the Chrome video hours are spent on phones.

Most of the changes relate to the HTML5 content. The ones using plugins for videos would not experience much change. Google says that the improvements would be most effective on shorter videos. Thus the people watching cat videos and ‘director’s cut’ videos are the biggest beneficiaries.

Google for long has advocated the use of HTML5. It has continually discouraged the use of Flash. Google says HTML5 software has faster loading and consumes lesser data and power. Thus it enhances video loading and the battery life as well. The version for Windows, Mac, and Linux brought up about 48 security fixes.